Reply to ADHD, not autism -- what now?

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "ADHD, not autism -- what now?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We're going through the process of getting our son into the County special ed preschool program.  Once he is found eligible, he can receive services ranging from speech therapy to OT while he is there.  The program is 1/2 day, 2-5 days a week depending on what your child needs.  Have you begun this process at all?  Is your child in Early Intervention?  If your child is in EI, then they transition to the County services regularly, and can definitely guide you on how the process works.

I'm curious...what made you get a second opinion?  Your situation is interesting to me because my son was dxed with ASD just after he turned 2...and was said to be mild....I think mostly because he doesn't exhibit many of the classic autism behaviors.  He is VERY smiley with both my husband and I, as well as others....doesn't exhibit repetitive behaviors like lining up objects etc.  He is not what I'd call a social butterfly, but he tolerates a traditional daycare with many children in his class.  He is extremely hyper...and [b]we've always wondered about the ADHD component[/b].
[/quote]

ASD can be accompanied by ADHD. [/quote]

NP here.  I don't think of it that way.  That is, I don't think that most kids have two separate disorders.  I think a more sensible way to look at it is that a child has one disorder, that is unique to them, that shares features with both ASD and ADHD and meets the criteria for both, or even ASD, ADHD and one or more other diagnoses such as an Anxiety Disorder, or  Apraxia of Speech, or Developmental Coordination Disorder, or Expressive and/or Receptive Language Disorders.   At various points in a child's development some features may be more prominent or concerning than others, and this may change over time.  For example, a child's communication difficulties may seem primary when they are very young, and then improve with intensive therapy, where as their difficulties with attention and executive functioning may not be as obvious until they enter school and encounter the demands of an academic setting, at which point it may be appropriate to program for him or her as a child with ADHD.

The other thing I will point out is that the criteria used to diagnose a child as having ASD under IDEA, are quite different from the criteria used to diagnose children under the DSM.  Because of this, there may be situations where a child is diagnosed by a school team as having ASD, while outside professionals describe him as ADHD, or to be diagnosed as ASD by outside professionals, but not qualify for an IEP at all at school.  [/quote]

[b]NP.  They are two separate disorders and we were told so by the neuropsych when we went for testing.  A competent neuropsych eval should be able to tease out whether a child has both ASD and ADHD or "just" ASD or ADHD.[/quote][/b]

Just a very experienced parent here, not a psychiatrist or tester, but I agree with this.  DD (yes they get it wrong for girls a lot) was misdiagnosed many times as having "just" ADHD/exec. functioning.  DS also has ADHD as does DH, so I'm pretty well versed in all the literature.  It took several attempts at different testers to finally get the then-used HFA label on DD and the moment the psychiatrist said it my brain went "bingo".  I had worked with the severely autistic and knew about Aspergers but was too close to the situation to see it myself.  My first argument to the psychiatrist was that DD had perfect eye contact.  He said "you are too close to it to see it".  He was right.  DD is definitely on the spectrum and it is becoming very obvious as we move into late adolescence/early adulthood.  All the private schools, therapists, psychiatrists, pediatricians and testers missed it for 15 years.  Testing is much better now than it was even a decade ago - but there are still too many in the field who don't know what they are doing and are too eager to put an ADHD label on anyone, especially boys, who act up.  My advice is to be willing to go with the flow and see what develops.  Get all the therapy and intervention you can but be open to new diagnoses.  I think I could have helped DD better if I had known that she was HFA two decades ago.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics